YΦXΨΩ were the letters added by the ancient greeks to the early northsemitic (phoenician) alphabet.

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SHAPE: Two different shapes in ancient cities of the Western-Eastern greek alphabet groups.
Some believe its shape was a simplification ( Φ ) of Theta shape: or a distortion of the letter koppa:

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SOUND: It all started from the array of letters pi and eta: ΠH : they were pronounced [p^h] as in the english word pot (See Eta H). The greeks loved this /h/ sound after /p/ /t/ and /k/. They created the letter Φ for the [p^h] sound (according to the change of pronunciation of Theta Θ which started its life as [t^h] and ended up [ θ ]. After the hellenistic times, it was pronounced [f]. The previous lettering ΠH survived as the <ph> spelling in latin and other languages.
Φ+/ia, ie, io, iu/ may be pronounced in some cases as[f^j] or [fç]. E.g.: italian: fiasco [`fjasko] also pronounced in greek as φιάσκo: [`fçasko]

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NAME: ETYMOLOGY:
NAME: SPELLING: Polytonic earlier version φε, hellenistic φ according to : pi πε > π

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COMBINATIONS: none
DOUBLED: No double occurrences.

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MORE GREEK WORDS STARTING WITH PHI
•φως/φωτός= light/of the light - photo(graphy) •φίλoς=friend - phil(anthropy) •φoβία= phobia •φωνή= voice •φράση= phrase •φύση=Nature - physio(logy) •φαινόμενoν-phenomenon